Teen Mom recap: season three premiere

Editor’s note: In a series of guest entries Stephanie Sylverne is recapping MTV’s reality show Teen Mom.

The original Teen Mom girls are back again for a third season and if the first episode is any indication, it should be a rather eventful one. As a former teen parent I still relate to a lot of the relationship dynamics between the girls and their babies’ dads (and their own parents), but I don’t think Maci, Amber, Catelynn, and Farrah are documentary subjects anymore. True, they crossed the line from docu-stars to full-fledged reality tv celebs awhile ago, but I thought the second season was still skating somewhere on the edge. It didn’t feel so much like a “post-tabloids fame” season as this one already does.

Here’s what the girls have been up to:
Last season Maci and her new boyfriend (but lifelong friend) Kyle broke up after she moved two hours away to Nashville in order to be closer to him. They got back together very soon after and it looks like they’re pretty solid now. I guess Kyle’s an all right guy, but for some reason I never liked him. Maybe he’ll change my mind this season.

Ryan’s child support payments stopped coming and Maci finds out he can be put in contempt of court- and possibly go to jail- if he doesn’t pay. But Ryan swears the payments were coming out of his unemployment check. Turns out Ryan was telling the truth- the payments didn’t go through due to a bank error. Score one for Ryan.

Speaking of Ryan, I forgot how much I missed loving to hate him. Except that in comparison to the new 16 and Pregnant/Teen Mom dads he’s downright tame. In fact, I am going to go say Ryan can be a contender for my Most Improved Teen Dad award. He is a good father even though he’s a terrible boyfriend.

Last night was also the unveiling of the official Best Ryan Moment Ever: texting Maci from 3 feet away to ask her, “Is Kyle slow?” To be fair, he did tell Maci he had an important question to ask her (but doesn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings). And we all know that when you text someone to ask her if her boyfriend is mentally challenged you have nothing but tact in mind.

MTV is still forcing their public service announcement moments too, like when Maci whines, “why is my life so hard?” and her friend responds, “Because you had unprotected sex. That’s why.” To Maci’s credit she rolled her eyes and barely stifled a snort. Enough already. Honestly. Let’s start with the fact that Maci’s life is not hard. Her life is a lot better than the lives of billions of people on Earth. But everyone is entitled to a little whining with their friends, so ignoring the fact that Maci’s life is not actually hard, I still want her friend to shut up. Because overly-simplistic talking points are not real explanations and all of this stone throwing by people sitting smugly in their glass houses has become quite tired. Parenthood is not and should never be a punishment for having sex.

Farrah is still waiting to get social security benefits from Sophia’s deceased father. She gets a lot of flack but my gut reaction is to like Farrah. Fine, her crying face is terrifying and the way she barks at her father makes me want to lock her in a dungeon, but I can’t help seeing her as a product of her emotionally deranged family life. Considering that her mother makes Snow White’s stepmom look like a sweetheart, Farrah does pretty well for herself. She definitely has ambition. She’s waitressing, going to culinary school, and modeling in addition to being a full-time mom.

Someday, when this show has long ended, reality tv experts will have heated debates over the precise moment when Teen Mom jumped the shark and I will fall fully into the Team Boobjob camp. Yes, Farrah got breast implants, because she believes it is a good investment in her modeling future. Tabloids were talking about this months ago, but I didn’t think it would be featured on the show. I don’t know about you, but when I think of the struggles that teen moms face as their children grow older, I think of the despair when faced with the fact that nobody will give them a loan for elective plastic surgery.

Of course Farrah’s mom knows an opportunity to further insert herself into Farrah’s life when she sees one, so she jumps at the chance to get legal documents drawn up stating if something awful happens to Farrah in surgery, she gets to be Sophia’s guardian. It’s a reasonable concern, but she looks so gleefully evil about it.

Farrah might have a sizable hate club, but Amber is definitely the anointed pariah of Teen Mom. Amber and her boyfriend Gary broke up again after the fist fight they had last season and things have not gotten any better for her since then. The on camera fight, in which Amber punched Gary in the face, led to all sorts of legal problems. Despite the punch in the face and the fact that Amber is dating a creepy passive-aggressive sociopath, Gary wants to get back together. This guy never learns.

Gary and Amber start going to therapy which goes about as well as can be expected (i.e. terribly). Amber tries to break it off with Chris, but he hangs on to his beer-money train for dear life, insisting on seeing her in person so that he can attempt to woo her with his half-assed begging (“Please, give a guy like me a chance”). Gross. Moving on…

I feel the need to give out one more season 3 premiere award- to Tyler, for Most Improved Fashion Sense. It seems like only yesterday that Tyler looked like a seven year old boy from the 90’s, and now he’s looking considerably more adorable. (Is it wrong to miss his comically large white baseball hat just a little bit?)

Catelynn and Tyler decide to move in together after a break-in scare at Catelynn’s mom’s house. April, Catelynn’s mom, does not protest (she seems to despise Catelynn most of the time anyway,) but Tyler’s mom has steam coming out her ears. I don’t get it. I haven’t seen these two apart since Catelynn was pregnant. They’re not already living together? I know they were living at Tyler’s mom’s house and then Catelynn moved out, but for all intents and purposes that seems like nothing but a formality.

Regardless, after all these two have been through why does his mom still think they’re “rushing” into an apartment? A lease is nothing compared to adoption papers. They’re over 18. He can always come back to mom’s if the relationship sours. Why hold him back with this “be a carefree teen!” stuff? I have never seen Tyler act like a kid, and don’t 18 year olds live on their own all the time?

All in all, I’m starting to see the original Teen Mom cast as characters on my favorite soap opera rather than representatives of young motherhood. Tabloid attention and MTV hobnobbing has changed their lives too drastically to be anything else. Fame doesn’t necessarily mean money though, and I still wonder how much, or how little, the parents are being compensated (rumors claim the bulk of MTV’s paychecks go into trust accounts for the babies). Like Tyler said last night: “If we were rich why would we live here?”